


the geode society

by bookhobbit



Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: Cissexism, Gen, Gender Issues, Hurt/Comfort, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Trans Male Character, but there's lots of other trans characters in the background, this is a fic about trans woman!rincewind fyi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-19
Updated: 2017-04-19
Packaged: 2018-10-21 02:04:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,786
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10675440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookhobbit/pseuds/bookhobbit
Summary: There's nothing particularly notable about new social movements in Ankh Morpork.There is, however, something new about them trickling into the confines of Unseen University. Even if they're only really trickling to one wizard.





	the geode society

**Author's Note:**

> I can't put this in the proper summary but REALLY the summary of this fic is "transitioning is hard and cissexism will heck you up." I know it's kind of a weird choice. There are lots of characters that are easier to explore trans issues with than Rincewind, like Mal, for instance. But that's...kind of the point? Idk, this is a fic about not knowing how gender works and not even feeling like you're parting of the trans community even while you're trans and it got personal and, anyway, yeah, here's this.
> 
> As much as large sections of this this is wildly projecting, ahem, I mean, based on personal feelings, I'm not a trans woman, so do tell me if I fall into any tropes I need to fix.

Light seeps slowly out of the library at the end of the day. There's something in the air that slows it -- maybe the high concentration of magic. Rincewind likes sitting in the window and reading there of an evening; there's something soothing about the way the twilight falls outside the window a few minutes before it does inside.

Behind him, the Librarian ooks softly over the repair of a broken binding. It's a sort of soothing tut, and Rincewind knows that as long as it's going on, things are going perfectly well. He's curled up in one of the chairs from the table, reading the Times and listening idly to the quiet sounds of the Library at rest. There's a few students over on the tables, looking harried, but they're not making noise other than the soft flipping of pages and the frantic muttering of the last-minute studier. Most of the rowdy types have gone off by now.

He turns his attention back to the paper.

NEW MOVEMENT SWEEPS ANKH-MORPORK, reads the title of the article. Well, thinks Rincewind, that'll be the hundredth one this year, and it's only April. Still, he peers at the article, squinting vaguely at it in the departing light.

The subheading is a quote: "WE SHOULD ALL BE FREE TO CHOOSE".

Nothing wrong with that, so far as Rincewind can see, provided murder or something isn't one of the choices. He reads on.

_It's well known in all levels of society that dwarves no longer come in only one sort. Women dwarves all over the city have been standing up, expressing themselves, and declaring that they ought to be allowed another pronoun and a skirt if they want one. But, it seems, they're not the only ones. According to Captain Angua von Uberwald of the Ankh Morpork City Watch (29), it serves as a chance for humans, too, to be themselves in new ways._

_She and Sergeant Cheery Littlebottom (pronounced Cheri, 105) of the Watch have banded together to form a new club for those wishing to learn how to do so. Called the Geode Society, it's "a place for anyone, dwarf or not, to learn about how they can express their true self."_

_According to Sergeant Littlebottom, "Geodes may look like an ordinary chalcedony on the outside, but on the inside, they're something quite different. Celestite, or calcite, or pyrite, for instance. It seems to me that, no matter what the species, classification based on outside appearance can be wrong. Here at the Geode Society, we want to help people find out how to express their celestite interior."_

_The sergeant added that, when she herself decided to explore her womanhood, there were few people to teach her, except Captain Angua. Now, the two of them want to help other young people who are just now coming to an apprehension of their own hidden depths._

Rincewind furrows his brow. Coming to their own depths? Do they mean ladies who hadn't been raised by their mums? He supposes you might need someone to teach you about...makeup and dresses and such things?

_Their notion, based on personal experience, is that, if some dwarfs can have secretly been women without the outside world being fully aware, why shouldn't this be so for humans? Perhaps some children who seem, on the surface, to be girls, may in fact be boys. Perhaps some who seem to be boys may be girls. In short, if you cannot always tell a dwarf's own gender by looking, why should you be able to tell a human's?_

_Captain Angua revealed that she, herself, had taken some time to realize her own womanhood. "It's not any different for us," she said. "It's just more obvious for dwarves. I think everyone knows what it's like to hide something about yourself. For us it's just something more fundamental than others. I'm not ashamed to admit that I've been in the same place; for a long time I didn't know I was a woman, either. So now I want to help other people figure it out."_

_The gist of the situation is that many humans are now taking the dwarf option. That is to say, they're choosing to express the gender they feel fits right, regardless of the social consequences. Some have hidden this, in various ways. All across our city, there are those who have chosen not wear clothing that feels uncomfortable and wrong, or to be addressed in ways that they hate. Or, they have chosen to pursue their true identity in secret -- keeping the changes that brought them there quiet. The skills of the Igors have made some of this process easier, but other parts remain just as difficult._

_Nor, indeed, it seems, is this limited to men and women. Corporal Nobby Nobs of the Ankh-Morpork City watch (probably 34) has been quoted as saying that he's "neither." According to him, he was certified human as an infant, and he feels that all other classification is unnecessary. He has joined Captain Angua and Sergeant Littlebottom's group, but has elected to remain something in the neighborhood of neither male nor female._

_To some of our readers, all this may seem strange. But we put forth a plea for compassion to those of you who may be hesitant. For are we not all citizens of the same society, and should we not try to understand each other?_

Rincewind puts down the article. He thinks he understands now. It's like Ponder. Ponder had once told him -- after a very late night where they got very drunk and started talking about things that were far too personal the way you sometimes did and then regretted -- that he hadn't _always_ been a man. Or maybe that he had been and just hadn't realized it until he was older. Rincewind had taken this stoically and proceeded to reveal some truly embarrassing facts about his journey with Twoflower. He still cringes thinking about it.

If he understands what the article is driving at, it's the same sort of situation.

It'd never occurred to Rincewind that you _could_ go other directions. He'd just sort of thought that Ponder was a man because he was a wizard. Wizardness had come, so maleness had followed. After all, that's why he himself is a man, isn't it? If he hadn't been a wizard, he could have been anything. Could have even been one of these ladies.

Rincewind pauses a moment to consider this. The idea that he'd been a woman all this time without knowing. Going to classes and all to figure out how to be yourself more.

 _Haha_ , he thinks.

 _Shit_ , he thinks.

-

There's any number of things one can do if one wants to keep oneself from considering a difficult subject. For instance, if you're a professor of cruel and unusual geography, you can fall back on organizing your predecessor's numerous collections fossils and rocks, which is Rincewind's default in a stressful situation. It's a pleasingly boring task, one which he fully estimates will take him, oh, another thirty years. It also requires a lot of brainpower. It takes talent to tell which rocks are mauve-to-purple and what bones are melancholy[1]. 

Then there's reading in the Library. Not newspapers. Newspapers are an inconvenient reminder and are, as such, banned. Instead, long treatises about foreign languages, edible plants, and the distinguishing characteristics of mud around the Disc present themselves to the mind that wishes not to be reminded of social issues.

Also, there's Ponder's committees. The endless committees. Rincewind knows he must be desperate if he's thinking about volunteering for them, but in any case he stops thinking about it as soon as he _remembers_ about Ponder, because that makes him think about the whole situation all over again.

Anyway...none of it does that much good, because the thought keeps intruding again. _I could have been one of them. I could have been like that._ Does he want to be? He's never really been uncomfortable with the thought of being a man. Exactly. It's not really what he would regard as his main categorization of himself, but...

Well. All right. It's quite tangential. He's a wizard is what he is.

Women can't be wizards.

Which settles it, so he shouldn't keep thinking about it, not when he's laying in bed at night and thinking of nothing much, not when he's squinting at the new script he's trying to learn in case he ever ends up in the small corner of Uberwald where it's used, not when he's decided that one particular fossil tooth is jagged, uncomfortable-looking, and a mild shade of taupe.

He looks down at his hands, sometimes, and wonders why it bothers him so much. Why there's a rising tide of panic every time he thinks about it. He doesn't care what other people do, so it shouldn't matter.

Except he kind of _does_ care because it's not _fair_ that they got to pick and he didn't and that he has to be this, whatever this is, and doesn't get to even think about other options, and --

_Oh gods._

-

Rincewind bursts into the HEM building with no ceremony. Ponder looks up from doing something complicated with a piece of cheese.

"Oh, hello," he says, with the shiny sort of enthusiasm he gets when he's preparing to Explain Things to Rincewind. "Do you want to see the new setup for the mice?"

"Not right now," says Rincewind hastily. "I need your help."

"What's wrong?

"You know how you are -" Rincewind hesitates. Is there even a word for what Ponder is? "-how you are?"

"Yes," says Ponder, "but can you be more specific?"

"A man. You know how you're a man?"

"I know that, yes."

"How did you know?"

Ponder frowns, and turns around for a moment. He fiddles with HEX, who seems, in some obscure way, to go to sleep.

"What's this about?" he says, turning his chair around to face Rincewind.

"I don't know," says Rincewind, hat in hands. "I read that article in the Times -- you know the one -- "

"No, not really." Ponder rubs his eyes. "What day's article was it?"

"Tuesday's."

"Hmm." Ponder squints at the wall, which, worryingly, doesn't even have a clock on it. "What's today?"

"Friday," says Rincewind.

"Ah," says Ponder, rubbing his eyes again. "No, I certainly haven't read it. Tell me about it."

"Well...it was about these people, you see. Like you, sort of. Some of them. And ladies who, who sort of took their example from lady dwarves."

"Sorry?"

Rincewind reconsiders the best way to phrase this. "Well. That is to say. They decided they wanted to be ladies? And some of them decided they wanted to be men. And there was an interview with Corporal Nobby Nobbs of the Watch. Who is apparently neither."

"Oh," says Ponder, "I see. I think I do, anyway." He takes his glasses off for a moment and rubs his forehead.

"How did you know?" Rincewind persists. "Did you do it just to become a wizard?"

"No, not at all. I just....knew. I think I was about twelve when I decided, but I'd thought about it long before then. I just always thought of myself that way, and my aunts went along with it, and at some point -- " Ponder shrugs. "It just made sense."

"Nothing makes sense," says Rincewind rather helplessly. "I mean, at my age -- "

"How old _are_ you?" asks Ponder.

"Well, that's a problem, you see. Not sure how long I was in the Dungeon Dimensions. I wound up in Hell and then on this island after that -- "

"Hell?" Ponder's brow furrows.

"Never mind that right now. Anyway, the point is I'm definitely not twelve."

"I don't think it works like that," says Ponder. "I mean, some people know what they want to do with their lives when they're twelve and some people don't know until they're sixty. It's got to be the same, surely. So this is about you, then?"

Rincewind shrugs, supposing there's not much pointing in hiding it. "I saw the article in the Times and I just...I started thinking."

"Well," says Ponder, with an air of finality.

"But I can't. I mean, I can't be a woman."

"Why not?"

"What about the faculty? You know the rules. Women can't be wizards," says Rincewind, panic rising a little.

"Well, no," says Ponder, consideringly. "But nobody ever said wizards can't become women."

Rincewind stares at him. "They'll never buy that."

Ponder shrugs. "I know virtually every statute of this university, you know. I'm sure I can figure _something_ out."

Rincewind heaves out a deep breath and sits in a chair. "Why are you helping me?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Historically, people have not. Besides, I just burst into your office having a crisis, without warning."

Ponder frowns. "Well, my aunts were very kind, you know. When I said. I thought they'd just say I was a tomboy, or that I'd grow out of it, but they didn't. They took me seriously. I suppose I'm paying that back, in my own way."

Rincewind stares suspiciously at him, and slumps down in the chair. "I don't know what to do."

"Seems to me," says Ponder, "That you've got rather a lot of thinking to do."

"I've been doing nothing but thinking."

"Thinking what, though?" Ponder straightens his back and ticks off on his fingers. "Because, I know you're not twelve, but if you're anything like I was at twelve, you're thinking about how scared you are, and how much you're afraid people will be angry with you, and how much this can't be happening to you."

Rincewind flops back against the desk beside the chair.

"I'll take that as a yes."

"What else is there to think about?"

"The good bits," says Ponder. "Well, I mean. For me, I thought about people calling me he, for instance -- I used to daydream about it. And having short hair. And wearing proper clothes. And just...generally being a boy."

Rincewind gives this some consideration. Hair: already growing out farther than it ought due to lack of motivation. Clothes: wizard robes, not to be exchanged for anything else, comfy and practical. There's the beard, but that's a huge and scary thought because Beards Are Wizards.

She.

Hmm.

The thought shoots a tendril of panic up Rincewind's spine, but not... _just_ panic. Something else unfamiliar. It feels alien, but maybe not necessarily in a bad way. An odd, jarring feeling, but maybe one that might be familiar one day?

Terrifying thought, really.

"What else?" says Rincewind.

"I don't know. It's been ages." Ponder leans back in his chair thoughtfully. "I was so young, you know, I sort of came upon it almost accidentally. I don't mean to be discouraging, but I suspect it might be a bit more challenging at this point."

"Ha," says Rincewind, flatly. "What's new."

Ponder shrugs. "Doesn't mean impossible. Anyway, why don't you give it some thought?"

-

For some reason, it's the _she_ that sticks the most. Everything else that seems the sort of thing you would change -- hair and clothes and name and all that -- is either a bit distant or somewhat irrelevant. It's not as though Rincewind is an obvious masculine name. Robes are robes, whatever identity you happen to have churning in yourself beneath them, and anyway they're a sign of wizardliness which Rincewind needs all of he can get. Hair: as discussed, The only thing he can do there is not get it cut, which he's already doing for totally unrelated reasons. (Or are they totally unrelated? He doesn't know.) Anyway, some women have short hair. He rubs a hand over his beard thoughtfully, but doesn't feel ready to consider that quite yet.

But there is the obvious factor. The pronoun factor. Which is somehow both the easiest, and the hardest.

Because, it's like this: he can change how he thinks about himself any time he likes. Probably won't be as easy as that, because half a century or so of habit doesn't go away easily, but he'll only have himself to blame if it goes wrong. But how do you ask _other people_ for that sort of thing?

Terrifying thought. It's large enough that Rincewind shifts his attention to the issue of the beard. Wizards don't _have_ to have beards -- Ponder doesn't, and nor do some of the students -- but it would draw comment if he suddenly shaved it after enduring years of comments about its scraggliness.

He tries listing other Things That Women Do in his head, and finds that he's coming up short. Makeup? Very much not his style. Feminine...hobbies and things? Conina would have his head for listing any, he suspects.

He gropes vaguely in his memory. Supposedly, marrying men, sort of, but he's been around a bit, and indeed knows own inclinations enough, to know that sort of generalization is a vast and inaccurate oversimplification. There are plenty of women with no interest in men and plenty of men with a considerable amount.

Anyway, he can't get married. Bearing children? But not all women do. Certainly, he thinks, the geode ladies probably don't, and even some other, well -- solid rocks don't or can't.

Not all women do anything, he is coming to realize.

What does being a woman even _mean_?

-

_Things that Being a Woman is Supposed to Involve (not necessarily true)_

 

  * __dresses__


  * _long hair_


  * _makeup and stuff_


  * _some names but not others_


  * _not a lot of muscles?_


  * _good with kids, or something??_


  * _i don't know_



 

_Things that Being a Woman Can Involve_

 

  * __The opposite of any of the above__


  * _anything else, apparently_


  * _?????_


  * _how does anyone_ _know_ _??_



 

-

"I just can't figure it out, Ponder. How are you supposed to tell?"

Ponder spins thoughtfully in his chair. "Can you not just...feel it?"

Rincewind gives a despairing groan. "I've overthought it. Everything feels weird. And I think even if it hadn't, I'm in the habit of being how I am now."

"But you keep bringing it up," Ponder points out.

"I know. That's the thing. I can't let it go."

"Seems like there's something to it, then." Ponder taps his chin with a pencil. "Do you think you could be -- " he gestures vaguely -- "Something else?"

Rincewind shrugs. "I suppose so. That is to say... I don't know."

Ponder raises an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"It's just. It sounds nice?" Rincewind wiggles uncomfortably. "Am I allowed to want to be one, without knowing what it involves?"

Ponder takes this gravely. "I think if you're at the stage of wanting to be something, it's worth exploring."

"Ponder?"

"Yes?"

"Could you..." A long pause, full of robe-plucking and thought. "I've been thinking a lot about... That is to say, the only thing that makes sense, that I can think of to change, is, erm, I think I might perhaps like to be a she."

Ponder nods. "That seems like a good first step. Are you going to tell anyone else?"

"Don't think I'm ready for that yet. Anyway, I might not like it."

Another nod. "Experimentation is always wise at first."

Rincewind runs her hands through her hair rather self-consciously. "And I thought I'd let it grow," she adds.

-

"Ook," says the Librarian.

"It's nothing," says Rincewind. "Nothing at all." She should have known he'd notice her distractedness lately. He's far more perceptive about that sort of thing than an orangutan has any right to be. Or, she thinks, grimacing, maybe she's just exceptionally bad at it. Another thing women are _supposed_ to be good at that she can't do.

"Eek."

"Yes, I know, but it's nothing, I swear. I just haven't felt like reading the newspaper."

The Librarian gives her a pointed look. He shuffles over to his desk, with an air of well, _when you're ready to tell me_ \--

She sighs. She's not sure why she feels so self-concious about this. He's an orangutan, what's he going to do? As long as it doesn't interfere with his bananas or his books, he's never cared before.

"Do you remember that article in the Times?" she asks.

"Ook."

"Of course you didn't." Why doesn't anyone else in this university read the newspaper? It would make her life so much easier. She pauses, trying to think of how to put this.

Well, why beat around the bush?

"I think...I'm not sure yet, but I think...I think, maybe, I'm a woman," she says.

The Librarian examines her stoically. "Ook," he says.

"That's not very sympathetic," says Rincewind, letting out a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding in a whoosh. What he's said is more or less _sounds very human of you_ , and, to be fair, he's not wrong. "We can't help it if we're complicated."

The Librarian gives her a look that suggests he's perfectly happy to be well out of all of this, and pats her on the shoulder with more sympathy. He ooks in a tone that seems to suggest well-wishes.

"Thank you." She sits down beside him at the desk. "Do you think it's silly?"

The Librarian's eloquent and very mobile shrug suggests that it's no more silly than anything else her entire species gets up to. She curls herself inward, sagging in relief. "I've only talked to Ponder about it, because he's -- " Oh no. Does the Librarian know? "-- knowledgeable about university rules," she finishes. "Do you think they'd kick me out? If I said."

The Librarian shrugs again and pats his desk firmly, as if to suggest that, should they try, he'd just hire her in here.

"Thanks. But I like being a professor, you know. It's not as though I've got any students, but it means they can't make me leave." She curls her arms around her knees and considers. "Do you think I should change my name?"

"Ook ook."

"No, you're right. It's more of a surname-sounding thing than a first name, really. I don't think it matters. But I wasn't sure. You know, it's very complicated."

The Librarian gives her a you-don't-say sort of look.

"Must be nice not to have to think about this sort of thing."

"Ook."

"Well, don't sound so smug."

"Ook?"

"No, I wouldn't like to be turned into an orangutan! They can't run very fast."

"Eek!"

"Yes, but fighting isn't my strong point." She heaves a sigh. "I know it was kindly meant, I just... It's difficult, that's all. I don't even know what I'm doing, or what I want to do."

The Librarian reaches over with one long arm and pats her shoulder. It doesn't help her questions, but at least he's there.

-

She keeps telling herself, small steps. She's still not quite sure what a woman is, or what it even means to be one, but she's decided to take it one little piece at a time. None of this so far is irreversible.

A few weeks to get used to _she_ , although she still messes it up in her head a lot. It's starting to feel more right. A week or two to consider the whole name thing again and decide that, no, she's happy with it as it is. A week to think about the beard, and decide that she wants it to go.

"Are you going to shave it?" says Ponder, not impatiently, just as if he's curious. Gods know why she chose to do this now, right after they'd been discussing totally unrelated things, or why he'd decided to stay when she looked panicky.

Rincewind stares at herself in the mirror. "Be a bit ridiculous if I didn't, wouldn't it?"

"Well, female dwarves have beards."

"I'm not a dwarf."

"No, you're a wizard. And wizards have beards. I'll grant you that many  human women don't, but..." Ponder shrugs. "Every population has variance, so I'm sure you wouldn't be the only one. You can go with the wizard one first."

Rincewind sighs, and picks up the razor. "Never was a very good beard anyway," she says, half to herself, and begins shaving, something she hasn't done since she was about fifteen.

"You didn't have to stay," she adds, wincing as she cuts herself a little and poking at the place with a finger. Out of practice.

"I know," says Ponder, "but it's difficult. The first steps, I mean."

"First steps," says Rincewind under her breath. Aloud, she says, "Do you think I have to dress different?"

"I don't think you _have_ to do anything," says Ponder, pushing up his glasses. "I mean, there's no set of rules." He gives her a small smile. "I looked."

"Why am I not surprised?" She inspects her face in the mirror. Clean-shaven now. Odd; she rubs a hand across her jaw and hmms.

"You look very nice," says Ponder.

Rincewind shrugs. She's not very pretty; too knobbly and battered. Not like Captain Angua, who she's seen before and whom she knows, in an objective sort of way, to be stunning. But, well, that's just fine. It's never mattered before, and she doesn't see why it should now.

"It's all right," she says. "I think I'll keep it this way."

-

There are meetings. She goes to one because you're supposed to do things like that, hovering uncomfortably on the outskirts of the tiny group. It's not the Geode Society, because Rincewind isn't terribly comfortable with the Watch, but anyway they're all starting to call themselves geodes now, with the force of a movement she can feel gathering around the city. She pulls up a chair and takes one of the biscuits and accepts a cup of tea for something to do with her hands.

Most of the women there feel, somehow, more put together, more whole and concrete than she is. Some of them are shy, just now figuring themselves out, but...well, those ones are mostly younger than her. She's reminded of Ponder, twelve and already knowing what he wanted to be. For herself, she's only ever known that she's a wizard, and everything else felt unimportant.

What does it say if you're...oh, fifty or whatever she is, and only just now starting? Does she even know what she wants to be? Does she even want anything to change? She's told the faculty absolutely nothing, and none of them have questioned the beard.

Sitting there and listening to everyone else's stories, she can't shake the feeling that she's not quite doing it right. She's too...not just too old, but too uncertain. Too full of doubt, and not full of enough longing. Too tired, not enough joy. As bad at this as everything else she's always done.

The Librarian would tell her there's no being bad at being yourself, she suspects. It's the sort of extremely pragmatic thing that orangutans say.

Anyway, she's a wizard, and she doesn't really feel like she belongs there with all the regular women who have themselves straightened out and know what any of this means to them.

Mostly, she listens, and eventually, she just stops going.

-

"Hello," says Ponder. He sounds like he's getting used to her dropping in the HEM when there's nobody around. He should; she's been doing it long enough. "Aren't you usually at that meeting you go to right about now?"

"It wasn't helping," she says, sitting down without any other preamble. "Everyone else is better at it than me."

He glances over at her and picks up a screwdriver as he starts to fix something on HEX's speaking tube. "I don't think there's a better at."

"You haven't been to them."

He shrugs in acknowledgement.

"Do you think you would? Go to one, I mean, ever?" she asks.

Ponder shrugs again. "I don't see much of a point for me, really. I've nearly forgotten what all of it was like. I'm finished, or something."

"I don't think I'll ever be finished," says Rincewind glumly. "I think I'm going to be catching up my whole life."

Ponder hmms. "I think you'll find a place you're happy with, eventually," he says.

Rincewind considers this in silence.  

She says, eventually, "Ponder?"

"Mm?"

"Do you know if there's any magic to turn me into a proper woman, instead of this?"

Ponder sets down the screwdriver very slowly. "Oh, Rincewind," he says, sounding sadder than she's ever heard him.

"Sorry," she says, sinking her head down a little closer to her knees.

Ponder looks at her as though he'd like to hug her but as if he's not quite sure how that would work, which is just as well, since she's never too sure about how to react to hugs. "You are a real one, you know?"

"Doesn't feel like it."

"I know." He sighs. "I'm sorry, but there's not. You know how magic is."

"Dangerous, and not very good for doing safe things to humans."

"I've looked," he says, giving her a wan smile. "I have. For a very long time."

She nods, and lays her head down against her knees. "I thought not. But I had to ask."

"I know," says Ponder again, very quietly. "There's Igors, you know. I saw some of them, at the beginning, but we had to go to Uberwald and all. There's far more around Ankh Morpork now."

She shakes her head again, without looking up at him. "That's not what I want."

Ponder says, once more, "I know."

And he probably does, because maybe he's felt it. She doesn't want to get surgery to look more like, realistically, something she's never really wanted to be. She just wants someone to wave a wand over her and make it all okay. Have it over with, all the doubts and the questions and the pain and the agonizing. Make it so that she is, unquestionably, a woman, and she'll never have to think twice about it, or call herself the wrong thing in her head, or think about what she wants and how she's going to get to it.

She squeezes her eyes shut.

She could give it up. She could give it all up, just go back to _he_ , ask Ponder and the Librarian to forget about it. Became something else, something she's thought she was since she was born. It wouldn't be that hard, would it? It's what everyone expects.

Only the thought of losing whatever little progress she's made _hurts_. She's fought through so much for this, and until she'd thought about going back, she hadn't realized how much it had come to mean to her. It's a very small beacon of herself in a very large world that has, heretofore, mostly squished her down into virtual nonexistence. It's a tiny, tiny flame of rightness that she can't bear to see extinguished.

But being stuck here, somewhere halfway between what she wants and what she is, that hurts too. And she doesn't know how to move.

The thing about geodes, Rincewind reckons, is that you have to break them to see the pretty bits. Has she been broken enough already for it to count? She doesn't know how much more she can stand.

-

The really great thing about apathy -- in fact, the only great thing about apathy -- is that it helps you do things that you'd otherwise never be able to. For example, Rincewind's considering marching into Ridcully's office, announcing that she's a woman, and slamming his door on the way out. She'd never even think about it if she wasn't halfway convinced that nothing she does is going to help anyway.

In actual fact, she just leaves the article she'd seen all those Tuesdays ago, with the story circled in red ink, on Ridcully's desk. In her not-very-neat handwriting, there's a note: _me_.

After a moment of thought, she'd signed it: _Rincewind_. She isn't sure the Archchancellor could recognize her writing, nor that he'd try. He'd probably just bellow until he found out who'd left it, and she'd really rather avoid a fuss.

Whether fate will allow it is something she'll have to wait on, and wait she does, until a few hours after when she gets the usual bellowed summon into his office.

She reports promptly and sits silently. She _hates_ the office; it reminds her of her student days. There's really only so much time you can spend in one location being harangued about your magical skills before it starts to be permanently tainted by the associations.

Ridcully looks at her over the top of his hands, something he really only does when he's trying to project Managerness.

"So," he says, "The Geode Society."

"Yes, sir."

"Heard of 'em."

She nods.

"Not conventional, having women being wizards. People will talk."

Rincewind squirms uncomfortably in her chair. "But I wasn't a woman when I became a wizard," she tries. Not how the Geode Society would put it, but close enough to the truth to get away with. She doesn't really care what he thinks, anyway, so long as this works out. Apathy or not, she realizes she's terrified.

Because if he pushes and makes her choose, she _knows_ it's wizard over woman by sheer force of habit, even though it'd feel like shoving glass into her stomach to have to make that choice.

"You sure you'd rather not become a witch?" asks Ridcully. "I know a perfectly good witch. Up in Lancre. Knows her way around witching."

"No, sir. I'm a wizard." She stares at her feet, and adds, a little desperately, "It says so on my hat."

Ridcully gazes at her for a few more moments. Then he bellows "MR. STIBBONS" at the top of his voice without turning his head.

Ponder comes so quickly that he must have been waiting on the other side of the door. _Typical_ , she thinks, although she's far too relieved at having an ally on her side to be really sarcastic even in her own head.

"Sir," says Ponder, clutching a clipboard.

"You know about this....situation, Mr. Stibbons?"

"Yes, sir. I am aware of the particulars."

"Well," says Ridcully, "What's the least fuss we can manage with the whole business?"

Rincewind looks up fearfully. This doesn't sound like a dismissal, exactly.

Ponder clears his throat and snaps into his Lecturing Mode. "Well, although the university statutes state that women are not allowed to study at the Unseen University, we don't actually have any rules about whether or not they can be faculty members. Of course, _traditionally_ , wizards are men, but there's no actual law about it. Provided Professor Rincewind is not seeking admission to the university, there's no laws that apply to her situation."

"I suppose it didn't seem necessary," says Ridcully. "Well, then, I suppose there's nothing for it but to carry on as usual."

"You're not dismissing me?" says Rincewind, all in a rush.

"No. No, that's far more fuss than it's worth, unless you're getting married or have been, I don't know, pursuing dark arts not covered by official university evil statutes. You're not getting married or pursuing dark arts not covered by official university evil statutes, are you?" Ridcully gives her a stern look.

"No," says Rincewind. Relief is spreading through her at the lazy speed of Library-filtered sunlight. Eventually, it's going to get to her head, and she's not sure what she'll do when it does.

"Right," says Ridcully. "Well, that's that then. Erm, Miss, er, Rincewind --"

"Professor," snaps Rincewind, who worked far too hard for this to let it go.

Ridcully blinks. "Professor, of course. I suppose you can make some sort of announcement at dinner or something."

This is far too conspicuous. Anyway, who else matters? The Archchancellor knows, the Librarian knows, Ponder knows. There's the rest of the faculty, but...

"I think," Rincewind says, "That I'll just take things as they come."

"Right," says Ridcully. "I believe it's nearly tiffin, so if you'll excuse me..."

Rincewind hurries out. At the last moment she grabs the newspaper article and clutches it all the way back to her room. It makes her feel less alone.

-

Outside the window of Rincewind's room, there's a raucous shouting, accompanied by several different types of music at once. She emerges abruptly from the geography paper she'd been reading and looks out.

_Oh._

Today's the day, then.

It'd been in the newspaper. It's some sort of parade, for, well, geodes. People like her, sort of. It's meant to increase visibility and call attention to the society's work in case someone else needs it. It's a proper movement, now, with spinoffs and people arguing and different interpretations of what things mean.

Rincewind wanders over to her window and peers out. Reminds her of that time in Fourecks a bit. Lots of colours and flags and floats and people in high heels and lots of leather jackets.

Not her style, really. Besides, she won't fit in. She closes the curtains and returns to her paper.

But after a moment, she realizes she can't forget about it. In a few minutes, the parade will be gone, and she'll have no choice but to leave it behind. Like she's left everything else she's done with the geodes, because she doesn't feel like she's quite right.

She stares at the paper in front of her, and, without being fully conscious of it, stands up. "Come on," she says to the Luggage. "Let's have a walk."

It follows her obligingly out the university, through the backstreets on the grounds that lead up to Sator Square. The music hits her, at least three different bands merrily playing completely different tunes. Nobody seems to mind the clash, though she herself winces a little at the change from the quiet of the university.

She slips through the crowds towards the hubbub, so that she can get a better view of the floats. She doesn't know what she's looking for, if it comes to it. Just knows she's looking.

Long, long experience of running through cities has left her extremely agile with her elbows. Before long, the crowd's random movement spits her out at the front, and she's standing there, in threadbare robes with her perpetually-tired eyes, watching from the outside. The way she always has.

The float in front of her weaves its way by. It's so close she could reach out and touch it, and as she does just that, she sees one of the ladies from her meetings. Margaret, her name is. The only one near Rincewind's age. Margaret sees her, waves. Rincewind thinks she mouths her name.

In that one moment, with that one motion, she goes from lurking on the outskirts of the crowd to standing in front of them, being part of something. She watches the parade go by, and hangs onto the feeling like a jewel in her hand.

The thing about geodes is, you have to break them to see the pretty bits. But maybe it's not about showing anyone else. Maybe it's just about you, yourself, knowing they're there.

-

"I've been thinking about what you said," says Ponder.

"About what?"

"The meetings. Going to them. I..." Ponder frowns. "I don't think that I'd want to leave the university, because I'm far too busy. But we must have some students like you or me, musn't we? At least one. Shouldn't we help them?"

Rincewind blinks. She thinks about her own student days: about assuming what she must be because of what she knew herself to be. About sitting in her room curled up small on the bed so that nobody could find her and force her to do something. About hiding in the lavatories to avoid being pummeled, and walking up to the Archchancellor's office all by herself.

"I think that would be nice," she says.

"So I was wondering if maybe you could go back to your group, and ask them how to get started. Would they let you have any tips for starting our own thing?"

"I think they would," says Rincewind.

-

"Rincewind!" says Margaret, greeting her with a clap on the shoulder. "We haven't seen you here in awhile. You're looking well."

Rincewind says, "I saw you at the parade," not sure why it's so important she convey this.

"Yes, I saw you too. Why didn't you join?"

"Wasn't really set up for it. Everyone else was all colourful and I just had my robes."

Margaret smiles. "Well, it's good to see you. Are you doing all right?"

"Yeah," says Rincewind, surprised that for once it doesn't feel like it's completely untrue. She's not there yet, but she's on her way. "I think I'm doing okay."

 

 

1Practically speaking, most of them are, since they belong to dead things. Distinguishing between shades of bone melancholy is a talent to which few can aspire, but which Rincewind is slowly developing. [return to text]


End file.
